FIRE IN THE HOLE!
I rather foolishly once allowed my old housemate to cook for me one night, after having discussed my steak chorizo and lime chilli recipe (forthcoming)this was the night before a festival.you know when you can pinpoint exactly what's gone wrong with a recipe from look and taste?having not watched him cook this, i can tell you with some certainty that his recipe was, as follows:

take pack of shitty cheap minceadd most of a container of hot chilli powder, one chopped white onion, a tin of cheap tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans and a small pinch of cumin. throw into a saucepan and cook over fierce heat until the bottom smoulders and welds itself to the pan.serve to friend who is about to spend four days in a field with terrifying portaloos.

i managed to eat about 1/3 of a bowl before my eyelids were sweating so fiercely i couldn't see. i abandoned ship, claiming to be full (tact) and went and guzzled a pot of greek yoghurt. nothing. tried fresh fruit, banana, chocolate, milk, nothing would extinguish the flames. horrible horrible stuff. i retreated to my room whimpering, and after about half an hour, my innards started to make a noise like a dishwasher draining.

this was only the start.seriously, my arsehole was like a fucking oxyacetylene lance for three days. forget shit through the eye of a needle, i could have melted the needle and the hand holding it. imagine that, but happening in the confines of portaloos in thirty degree heat, i'm sweating, tears in my eyes, clutching a woefully inadequate amount of cheap scratchy festival toilet paper, with mount fucking vesuvius blasting clods of molten magma out of my jacksie like a goddamn gatling cannon loaded with mace. the smell is indescribable, i actually exited a portaloo once, the person behind me stepped in, LEAPT out, caught up with me to call me a dirty bastard.. i have never forgiven him for the event. anything he ever cooks again, i look at with the same distrust i would give a hole in the road covered with corrugated iron if i was driving through afghanistan in an army jeep.
(UppityDamnPrimateLET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 13:41,
7 replies)

Magic RecipeIngredients:

Long grassGarlicBasilPine nutsOlive oil

Instructions:

Thresh the grass and throw the seeds away. Put the stalks in a low oven to dry them thoroughly. While that's happening, crush the garlic, chop the basil and pine nuts put them in a jar with the olive oil, screw down the lid and shake well.

Take the grass out of the oven and arrange on a serving plate. Drizzle over the sauce. And ...

1) Invite object of affection over for dinner. Ensure flatmates are out. Tidy up. Hide porn.2) Assemble following ingredients: Fresh pasta, salmon fillets, white wine, cream, garlic, lemon juice, fresh parsley.3) Cook required amount of pasta. Meanwhile bake salmon fillets until cooked. 4) Pour white wine into saucepan and reduce down by half. Add cream, garlic and lemon juice, salt & pepper, then flake the cooked salmon fillets and stir through.5) Mix with cooked pasta, garnish with chopped parsley and serve. 6) Consume with several bottles of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, while modestly denying that you are in fact the greatest chef who has ever lived.7) Make no attempt whatsoever to fend off future wife, who is by this point making growling noises and dry-humping the couch.

WOMEN: How to woo your future husband:

1) Invite object of affection to local inn or hostelry. Consume own weight in Dry Blackthorn.2) Stumble home in state of advanced refreshment, with equally unsteady companion in tow, pausing briefly to urinate in council grit bin.3) Upon arriving home, open freezer and conduct following inventory: 1 x 700ml bottle supermarket brand vodka, 1 x 48 pack supermarket brand fish fingers.4) Grill entire box of fish fingers until charcoal on one side, still frozen on other. Facilitate this process using vodka as required.5) Descend on pile of fish fingers like biblical plague of locusts. Consume entire pack in almost complete silence. Do not under any circumstances pause to consider likely constituents, origins or genetic make-up of home brand fish fingers. Complement with last dregs of vodka.6) Retire to boudoir, leaving grill on. Attempt bestial congress. Lose consciousness.

The Uncle Bill Cookbook
Dear old Uncle Bill (actually my ex-wife's relative), a widower, had a haphazard approach to cooking. We kept an eye on him and were regularly appalled and astonished at some of the stuff he fed himself.

Here are three that spring to mind:

"Easter Bacon"

1: preheat some kind of grease (olive oil, lard, a knob of butter, Brylcreem) in a frying pan2: when it looks / smells hot enough, lob in rashers of bacon3: (optional) take phone call from elderly relative, keeping eye on bacon & turning occasionally, until you need to look something up on the internet and forget about the bacon until it burns4: when bacon is cooked, turn heat under pan off - this gives the bacon a chance to soak up plenty of grease (unless it's all burned away)5: realise you have no bread: all you have is hot cross buns, so butter a couple of them6: realise you have no ketchup of any description: put a smear of very old marmalade on each HXB, add bacon

Tasting note: crispy bacon served in a hot cross bun is actually rather lovely

"What's that funny smell?"

1: put kettle on for instant mashed potato2: open 220g tin of Grant's Haggis, plonk/scrape into a small saucepan and heat through gently, stirring occasionally3: that doesn't look like much... rifle through cupboard until you find...4: a 170g tin of John West crab meat chunks; add this to the haggis5: while this is warming through (or burning), make the instant mash - but:6: you should ignore the instructions and add too much water7: that mini-stilton someone got you for Xmas will nicely melt into the runny mash and thicken it up8: serve, consume and when later challenged, declare that it was very tasty

Shopping:1: time your visit to the supermarket to coincide with all the near-expiry stuff being discounted2: you are shopping for meat - any kind, but mince is de rigeur - whatever's cheap3: the doctor says you have to eat more vegetables, so grab a couple of onions while you're at it4: stock up on toilet rolls and Gaviscon

Cooking:1: fry the diced or sliced onions gently until soft2: brown the mince, then transfer with the onions to a huge casserole dish3: whatever cheap meat you bought - beef, pork, lamb, chicken, sausages, etc. - cut into 1 inch cubes and fry it all up a bit4: transfer to the casserole dish5: dissolve gravy-type things (OXO cubes, Bisto granules, whatever you have at the back of the cupboard) in hot water and lob all that into the casserole dish6: cover the dish and stick it into an oven at whatever temperature takes your fancy for an indeterminate period of time - 3 to 6 hours is good7: consume over the course of a week with accompaniments such as mustard, bread and pickled onions, hot or cold, for breakfast, lunch or a light supper8: do this every week for 3 months or until your doctor tells you to stop

Epilogue:The old duffer died years ago - of heart failure, unsurprisingly - but I still remember him fondly.
(MisterPunchdid it that way on, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 14:39,
3 replies)

Having
eaten at one of Anthony Worrall Thomson's restaurants a few times me and a few mates were eager to know what the sticky fingered cheese thief was actually like in RL. The concierge at the time said that he couldn't possibly comment, so we asked if we could sum him up in a sentence and he could just nod or shake his head, here's how it went -

Ingredients: 1 large packaged Sausage from the outer reaches of russia or somewhere(Found at the back of the fridge next to the garlic that's begun to take root)

40 allsorted lengths of spagetti(You can harvest your own from the bottom of the bread bin)

1 tea spoon of salt (Gatherd from the rim of the empty salt shaker)

Method.Step 1: Poke all fourty Lengths of Spagetti through the Sausage. Step 2: Boil Sausage with spagetti in water.Step 3: Remove Sausage, Spagetti thing with bare hands and scream like a little girl.Step 4: Get mother to take out the Sausage thing.Step 5: Decide not to eat the thing and leave it under your sisters pillow.Step 6: Sprinkle salt on her bed to garnish.

Celery delight.
A few stalks of really good fresh celery can be softened in hot water until they begin to break up easily with a fork.From there on, its a simple task to push the disgusting crap straight down the plughole with the handle of a wooden spoon, much as one would clear carroty vomit chunks from a flooded sink.
(Infidel, shit and wrong, Wed 4 Jul 2012, 0:28,
1 reply)

I once tried to make a microwaved chocolate muffin for my wifey.
Except I didn't have any milk so used twice the amount of cooking oil instead, assuming that in the world of 'cookery' one liquid was much the same as another.

When it came out after 5 long minutes...it looked like a slab of beef and smelled like a wet dog.

I ate my bit out of sheer bloody mindedness and was rewarded with an evening of bowel-related entertainments.
(JimbotfuBummed in the gob again, Tue 3 Jul 2012, 19:37,
Reply)

Cookie monsters
Cakes. Lurvely cakes. I saw some particular cakes on t'internet and decided to try and make them. Now normally, when I try and copy something, it just comes out bollocks. But not these. These were BETTER than the originals looked.So here is the recipe for cookie monster cakes. Makes about 16 250g butter room temperature (I use stork marg) 250g self-raising flour + pinch salt 250g caster sugar 4 medium eggsFollow Victoria sponge mix method so…1) Cream sugar and butter until pale and fluffy2) Beat in eggs a little at a time with little bit of flour each time so it doesn’t curdle (or if have mixer add 1 egg at a time with 1 tbsp flour)3) Fold in rest of flour with metal spoon gently to keep the air in4) Put into cupcake/muffin cases5) Bake middle oven 180 for about 25 mins until lightly goldenIcing: 300g icing sugar sifted 50g soft buffer 125g cream cheese cold1) Mix together butter and icing sugar until mixed2) Mix cream cheese in until smooth, but not too long as it can go runny. If it goes to runny add more icing sugar3) Add food colouring and mix (if it goes runny again add a bit more icing sugar)Mix desiccated coconut in with food colouring to get topping. This is the magic bit as you can’t get the icing to go true ‘cookie monster’ blue. BUT the coconut will slurp up the colouring lovely.Eyes made with white choc buttons with small dark choc chips on top, can use writing icing pen or bit of water mixed with icing sugar to stick together. Double choc cookies for mouth halved and cut upAnd here is what they looked like:BTW, everyone loved them. They got tweeted and facebumdered to death. I work in 'trendy' media London and design agencies we knew were ringing up asking where we purchased them. I could have made a killing....First time post so be gentle...
(hovisbiscuita big boy did it and ran away..., Fri 29 Jun 2012, 9:59,
8 replies)

Sausages with mustard core
Use a clean 3mm drill to drill though the length of a frozen, high quality sausage. Inject English mustard into the void. Cap the ends with a ball of compressed bread. Fry or grill as normal.
(Carlossus, Thu 28 Jun 2012, 23:15,
1 reply)

mix together the olive oil, chilli, garlic, ginger and soy sauce in a bowl. add sliced squid and prawns. stir and leave to marinate for half an hour.heat a non-stick pan and toss in the squid, prawns and marinade. as it has olive oil in it, you won't need oil in the pan. stir vigorously for about 2 minutes, or until the prawns turn pink. the squid will be cooked by then, too. arrange mixed salad on a plate, then add the squid and prawns. use the marinade as a salad dressing, it'll have all that lovely fishy, spicy taste in it.eat quickly, before the seafood gets cold.trust me, it's delicious!
(Smash Monkeyi understand you, little well-dressed bird, Sat 30 Jun 2012, 20:45,
2 replies)

Bread.
Don't use a bread maker, they suck. Don't use exact measurements, they'll only convince you that you're doing it wrong.

You're going to need some water, a bag of flour (usually they are 1.5kg), some dried yeast (usually it's about 60p for a tin that lasts for ages) and a tin of beer (okay, this one is optional). You're also going to need a jug or small bowl, a biggish bowl, and a baking sheet or big flat baking tray. Or bread tins.

Stick about 300ml of warm water - 200ml of cold and 100ml of boiling will be about right - into a bowl, and stir in a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of dried yeast. Put it somewhere warm for 20 minutes. Once it's done give it a stir to get rid of the foam.

Put half a bag of flour (about 750g) into a biggish bowl. Make a well in the middle, and pour about half the yeasty water in. Pull some flour in and make a wee puddle in the middle of sloppy floury gunk. Put a clean dishcloth over the bowl, leave it somewhere warm for 20 minutes. It should look bubbly when it's done.

Now stir it and pour in the rest of the yeasty water. You should end up with a firm, slightly sticky dough. If it's too and all the flour won't mix in, add more water a little bit at a time. If it's too wet, add a bit more flour. Don't overdo it.

Kneading it is the fun part. Pour a handful or two of flour onto a clean cutting board, or even just onto the worktop (but it's hell to clean off). Make sure your hands are covered in flour, or the dough will stick. Start kneading the dough making sure you keep turning it different ways. After about five to ten minutes (yes, really that long - stick a 12" single on, New Order - "Blue Monday" is about the right length and speed) it'll get a kind of smooth glossy look - it's about done. Chuck the dough back into the bowl, put the dishtowel back over it, and put it back in a warm place for about an hour or so.

Have a beer.

Put the oven on at 200°C-220°C. Get the dough out, turn it back out onto your floured chopping board, and cut it in half. If you're using bread tins, grease them with some margarine, and stick the bread in. If you're using a baking sheet, sprinkle a thin layer of flour on it, shape the two bits of dough into ovals, and put them on it. You can cut slashes about 1/2" deep diagonally across the bread so it looks like the stuff you get in the posh bakeries.

Bung it in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, or until it looks done and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

If you want to make posh bread with seeds and stuff in, mix them into the flour before you add the water. Sunflower seeds work pretty well, as do pumpkin seeds.

If you want to make the top all shiny and glossy, brush a little beaten egg on. You can use milk which makes it slightly shiny and a bit browner, or you can use a little oil. Brush on some milk and sprinkle sesame seeds on, even.

I saw a really good recipe on the web
I didn't have time to write down the ingredients, but it serves two, comes in a cup, and appears to be something fun you can share with a friend
(cumquat mayBring it! And by it I mean sandwiches, Tue 3 Jul 2012, 23:24,
4 replies)

Chilli Chocolate Mousse
Being a big fan of arse-stinging chillis and sexy dark chocolate, this is a match made in Satan's undercrackers!!Melt dark choc' (80% cocoa, buy the cheap stuff from Lidl, no need for that pretentious Greens Organic pish) in a bowl over a pan of hot water, set aside.Whisk eggs and sugar together in a bowl until thick.Use a metal spoon (?) to fold in the chocolate goo with the eggy mixture. Go all Nigella on it's ass!!Now here's the secret bit. The chilli flavouring comes from gently frying chopped chillis in some good vegetable oil, you are infusing the oil with the hit of chilli. In this respect you could use anything - Chocolate and onion mousse, chocolate and fried liver mousse, etc, etc. Remember, the more chillis used, the hotter the infused oil will be.After the infused oil has cooled, slowly add to the choco, eggy mix, folding it in. Now add whipped cream, again fold it in.Divide this mix into some posh wine glasses, and throw them in the fridge until set.Garnish however you please, and eat.You get this really rich, smooth, dark chocolate mousse, which melts in the mouth. Then your taste buds are violently assaulted by the heat of the chillis. Take more dark chocolate mousse to cool-down, ad-infinitum.

And that my friends, is how to break a cherry. I fank-you!!
(cargoeng, Tue 3 Jul 2012, 3:10,
Reply)

You will always have biscuits.
X weight of sugar X weight of butter.2X weight of flour.

Mix together to make a dough. Divide into balls and flatten.Bake for 8 mins at about 180. Take out when still slightly squishy, they'll harden up if you leave them for 5 mins before eating them.

Possible additional ingredients:porridge oats to replace some of the flour / choc chips / syrup to replace some of the sugar.

Tools - plastic jars with lids, coffee filters, an eyedropper, a funnel, and a coffee pot.

1. Start by taking Sudafed (which has pseudoephedrine as its active ingredient) and crush it into a powder. The powder is then dissolved into the ether and then coffee filters are used to separate the liquid from a white sludgy material (which is thrown out). After being evaporated in a coffee pot, what remains is a pure form of pseudoephedrine, which is close to crystal meth by itself.

2. Your new solution will then be cooked for several hours with red phosphorus, iodine, and hydrochloric acid. After the mixture is cooled down, it is once again filtered and then made into a base using sodium hydroxide. Ether is used for a second time as a solvent, and after evaporating the ether, methamphetamine is left. All that is left now is making the methamphetamine into crystals, which is why it is called crystal meth.

3. Crystal meth is then created by bubbling hydrochloric acid gas into the container that has the methamphetamine inside. This material is then filtered for a last time, and the crystals collect on the filter itself. You know have crystal meth in your possession.
(shezamslouching towards nirvana., Sat 30 Jun 2012, 21:29,
17 replies)

Real baked beans
The basic quantity is one kilo of dried haricot, butter or adzuki beans.

Soak overnight and then boil for 10 minutes.

In your big poncy Le Creuset casserole fry a packet of cooking bacon cut into chunks. Add the beans, 2 tablespoons of black treacle, a tablespoon of smoked paprika, a teaspoon of chili, two tins of chopped tomatoes, Worcester sauce and the juice of a lemon. Top up with red wine to cover and boil up. Into the oven at 110 °C for 4 hours. Stir at the halfway mark, check seasoning and top up with fluid if it's drying.

If the beans are soft it's done. Add a bit more treacle, paprika and Worcester and give it another 30 minutes: it should be pretty thick and goopy. If not, uncover and boil off the wet.

Other stuff to add includes bay leaf, chili, oregano, spring onion garlic, whatever will add to the pungency of your farts.

Make no mistake, this stuff can strip wallpaper, bubble paint and make you in-laws depart in a huff.
(all my scars face forwardpossesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 22:50,
6 replies)

Making shit
Right, so, I’m a bit of a food ponce. I like good food. I don’t subscribe to the food looking fancy shmancy shit, but I want the food I eat to taste nice. I will happily eat a kebab, KFC or McDonalds, because they do actually taste good. Even if they do make you feel sick. So although you are probably thinking it, I’m not some snobby twat.

I am also a male, and as a result, a fan of making things.

Since getting my own house, I have started to build things, much to my girlfriend’s consternation. It started off small, just a wine rack to fit in a gap beside the dishwasher, but things have escalated. Here are my three proudest makes…

One morning, I woke up and thought to myself, “I fancy smoked salmon today”. I went to the shop, bought some, and had it with my scrambled eggs. Over breakfast I was thinking about how easy it must be to smoke things for yourself. I came up with a plan in my head and set about executing it.

I bought two steel bins, and attached a length of chimney liner to them, hung up some fish in one bin, and built a fire in the other. It was genius I tells ya! After a few hours, I had my very own smoked salmon. Unfortunately, due to the prepping of the fish, I have only used this once.

My next experiment was a biltong box. I love the salty goodness of meat (fnarr fnarr). I got a box, drilled some holes and cured some beef. Set it up and let it dry for a few days. This was an unqualified success. SO much cheaper than the shop, and better than anything you can buy.

Finally, most favourite of all my experiments, I made my own pizza oven in the garden. I built a base with some truck tyres and rocks, dug up some clay from behind my garden, and set this up.

I can now pretend I am in Naples, smugging it up like the guy with a croissant, except with a slice of pizza and a glass of wine. The neighbours look on enviously as they eat their burnt sausages from a mediocre bbq whilst I live it up with my pizza.

The next step is to insulate the pizza oven to make it hold more heat, and do slow roasted joints and pulled pork over night.

My main problem is that I don't ever actually plan things - like most good men. I have an idea, and I go with it, sometimes it works, other times I spend weeks corrcting a mistake that I made, but eventually it always works.

Turd!
I cooked a turd and it tasted shit. I think that is how it's supposed to taste. Success!
(AnnaPhylaxisAll fish and no aquarium, Thu 28 Jun 2012, 22:09,
4 replies)

fish omelette
crack open 6 fish eggs.realise they're not like ordinary eggs.chuck them out and get a chippy tea.wash it down with a bottle of gin.
(Smash Monkeyi understand you, little well-dressed bird, Wed 4 Jul 2012, 20:47,
7 replies)

Back-story; 5 blokes, in a magnificent old heritage rental house in a far Western Qld town; been working together for years, one night together in a nice old house, cold night, fully refurbished with new kitchen, open fireplace with roaring fire, no spouses, brand new Ilve stove, ice cold beer.

Tomorrow we go forth to spend the next 3 weeks living in demountable accommodation, in “dry camps” , but tonight we enjoy good company, cold beer and a hefty meal cooked by one Mr. Oath..

But firstly, cooking needs music. If cooking with music doesn’t get your bones moving, you’re heart is truly fucking dead.

The prep work: I use any pretty much any track from “Slade Alive” to season and oil steaks, peel potatoes, chop mushrooms, de-string beans. If you don’t know who Noddy Holder is, the use Google, or get a fucking life.

Next, Slade Alive may give way to a live rendition of “Dirty Love” by Motorhead as you toss chunked potato’s with olive oil, sea salt, cheap shitty Chinese garlic, rosemary and white pepper (only white pepper, black pepper is too harsh, and only serial masturbators in restaurants use black pepper) onto an oven tray.

Spread the spuds around a baking tray then bung them in a pre-heated oven. Motorhead may be substituted by Hunters and Collectors for the Australian’s, but I like to keep it real for my UK brethren. Also, I’ve had beers with Lemmy, so it seems like he’s here, man, when I play his music whilst cooking. He smells like bourbon and fags. Comforting.

So, halfway now, quick , quick have another beer, then mellow down the music, as you have to concentrate on cooking meat. Try “Gay Bar” by Electric Six. So soothing and relaxing. Chicks also think you’re really broad minded too.

By now a big, big fucking big frying pan should be pre-heated to searingly melting hot. The steaks should be room temperature, happily marinated in olive oil, sea salt and nothing else. Big fucking T Bones Steaks. Unbelievable an animal can grow so large. Oooh, so big. Gets me hard. So raw.

Lay the steaks into the searing hot pan.. Oooh so gentle. Such big clumsy steaks, they need all the help they can get. Sizzle sizzle. When they start to sweat on one side, turn them over, twist of salt. After a minute, remove from pan and stack onto a heated plate. Next toss the chopped mushrooms into the pan to soak up the steak juices. Mushrooms also need a lot of butter, but of course you have pre-mashed a good teaspoon of chopped garlic into the butter. Smear the garlic butter onto the mushrooms as they fry. The pan juices mingle with the melting butter, as the mushrooms begin to soften. Then, just as the mushrooms become soft and pliable, add a dash of milk mixed with cornflour. Ooooh, magic. Mushrooms in thick gravy. Shake a dash of white pepper over the whole mix as Cold Chisel’s live rendition of “Baby’s On Fire” sooths your bones.

At this point, I think of Nigella. Plummy accent, huge tits hidden thighs. Another life. I also think Buzzcocks, or Peter and the Test Tube Babies.

As the mushrooms are bubbling in their wonderful gravy, quickly shlupp them onto each plate whilst hot, return the steaks to the pan to sop up the juices, then plunge the snow peas onto boiling water. The spuds are done ,so quickly grab the tray from the oven, shake a handful onto each plate, and chuck the tray into the sink. Now retrieve the snow peas, 1 minute max in boiling water will do. Chuck them in a colander or sieve, run briefly them under cold tap water, shake dry like a pissy dick, and toss a few on each plate.

Lastly, as Creedence Clear Water Revival begins, grab a pair of tongs and place a steak on each plate.

Steak, spuds, mushrooms done in steaky-gravy and fresh crunchy show peas. Serve with beer and a maybe some David Bowie – it lends to the silence as everybody devours their dinner, even though he’s old and a bit dick-sucky. You’ll be surprised.

fucking good risotto, feeds two
I'm disturbed at how many of the recipes so far are "simple" and "shit". Here's a bloody awesome recipe that isn't actually hard but certainly takes some preparation. Is it worth it? I think so, but then I don't see "quick and simple" as inherently worthy goals when cooking.

Before you can start making your risotto, you have to cook and eat an entirely different meal a day or more before:

Roast a Chicken for the pair of you, have roast spuds, plenty of veggies - just cook it yourself, don't buy an already cooked chicken. Make sure you buy a chicken large enough that you'll only consume half of it.

Put your vegetable peelings in a large saucepan (3 litre capactity). Before you wash up, scrape all the meat and fat juices into the saucepan too.

Take the chicken carcass and remove all the chicken flesh (and only the flesh) into a bowl or container, and refrigerate. Into the large saucepan of peelings etc goes all the bones, skin, internal organs.

Boil up 1.7 litres of water in your kettle, pour into saucepan with bones etc. Bring saucepan to a vigorous boil, take down to a bare simmer and simmer for at least 2 hours, checking every now and then to make sure the heat is okay and to turn over the contents.

Once the water level has dropped a few inches, pour the contents of the saucepan through a colander into another saucepan. Throw the bones and crap away, leaving you with about a litre of beautiful golden chicken stock, entirely unlike the shit liquid you buy in a carton or dried brown flavoured salt you buy as a cube.

Let this cool, put it into a suitable container and refrigerate.

Next day, or day after, it's time to make some awesome chicken risotto.

Other than your 1 litre of beautiful stock and chicken meat (torn into small strips), you will need:

1. Pour your stock into a small saucepan, warm it up and keep it warm (do not boil). Put in a few pinches of salt.1. Chop up your onion and garlic.2. Heat the butter and a decent glug of olive oil into a 3 litre saucepan. Once the butter has melted, chuck in the onion and garlic and cook for 3 minutes on a medium heat.3. Stir in your risotto rice and cook for a further 5 minutes, stirring frequently (it'll get a bit sticky) until the rice has begun to colour.4. Turn the heat down a bit. Ladle in 1 cup of your warm stock. This will bubble magnificently and quickly be absorbed/boil off.5. Put in 1 cup of white wine, no more. This should not bubble magnificently, but still absorb fairly quickly - otherwise adjust your heat. Stir occasionally until the liquid is almost gone (the risotto will become stiffer and harder to stir - don't let it bubble too much or burn).6. Once this has absorbed, chuck in your mushrooms and 1 cup of stock. Stir occasionally while the stock is absorbed.7. As each cup of liquid is absorbed, put in another cup, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in a seperate saucepan, cook your green beans.8. When you are down to your last cup of stock, try some of the rice: it should not be gritty*. Put your chicken and final cup of stock in, and stir. Once this has begun to absorb, put in your parsley, grind in some black pepper.9. Once the stock is absorbed, take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the parmesan cheese. 10. Serve, with green beans on the side.

*if your rice is still a bit gritty and you're almost out of stock, you're going to have to use your last cup of stock now. Unless you have a stash of beatuiful home-made stock in the freezer you can quickly defrost in a suacepan/microwave, any further liquid required will have to be plain boiled water 1 cup at a time. Do not use a stock cube with it. If you had 1 litre of stock to begin with and cooked 1 cup of risotto rice, this should not occur.

Tips: never, at any stage, be tempted to put more white wine in - it will totally dominate and ruin the flavour. If you don't see the point in parsley, try it anyway - it makes all the difference in this dish. Always use risotto rice. If when making your stock you forgot about it and the liquid almost simmered away, just boil a kettle and top it up again to 1 litre. Let it simmer for about 5/10 minutes and it should be absolutely fine.
(ferret-> twitter.com/syfyautocorrect <-, Sun 1 Jul 2012, 16:52,
Reply)

Ma Po Tofu (veggie version)
Dunno if you've tried Sichuan food, it's the spiciest, most mouth tingly food ever. The peppercorns actually make your mouth go numb so you can eat more chillis. It's the perfect soul food after a crappy day at work, and it takes less than 10 minutes to make, especially if you use a jar of garlic/ginger paste.This is the veggie version, instead of mushrooms, you can fry up diced pork if that's your thing.

How to:Add mushrooms and 3/4 tsp salt to a small bowl and mix well with your hands, pressing the salt into the mushrooms well. Add soy sauce and red vinegar and mix to combine. Let marinade for 5 minutes, then squeeze out all liquid by pressing mushrooms firmly between paper towels or cheese cloth. This bit is fun.

Heat a wok over high heat, add 2 tablespoons oil and when hot, add the mushrooms. Separate the pieces so they don’t clump. Once they are golden brown remove using a slotted spoon and transfer to a kitchen paper lined plate. Clean the wok and heat over high again.

Add 2 tablespoons oil to the wok and once heated, add the chili paste, soy bean paste, chilies, black beans, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for about a minute.

Add the water, sugar, and soy sauce and stir well to mix.

Slide the tofu and simmer for 3 minutes.

Mix the cornstarch well and then pour evenly into the wok. Stir gently and simmer for about 3 minutes until the sauce has thickened.

Add mushrooms back to wok.

Sprinkle the spring onions over top just before removing from heat.Top with ground Sichuan pepper and serve immediately over medium grain white rice (tastes better of you soak the rice for an hour before cooking)

the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, she musta been aiming for another organ
I was dating a girl several years my junior, a 2nd year uni student.that week, i'd cooked her a nice but simple italian meal, she decided to respond in kind.

I turned up at her house just as she was starting to cook.so she's popped boiling water in a pan. salted it. added pasta. so far so good.she's chopping an onion. nothing strange here.

ooookaaaaayyy. she's added the onion to the boiling water with the pasta. alarm bells are ringing.

she's now peeling a couple cloves of garlic. where is this going? please god not in the boiling water...

she's emptying a tub of cold, i mean chilled, co-op salsa dip, you know like you would dunk your doritos in, on top of the past and boiled onion.

christ.

but what about the garlic? i'm sure she peeled some garlic..

wait...she's now GRATING the raw garlic into the lukewarm mess.Aaaaand.. serve.

still makes me boggle. how did she survive uni? i didn't hang round much longer to find out.footnote: to quell the inevitable questions of why i didn't say anything- equal parts not wanting to offend, and being tired of dragging my overfilled nutsack about like a fucking spacehopper.
(UppityDamnPrimateLET'S OPEN THIS F*CKING PIT UP, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 11:48,
10 replies)